Idiot Money
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#1: The correlation between having money, managing it well, and living a good life
#2: Don’t know where to begin sorting out your finances? It’s not where you think it is
#3: Your relationship with money is complex. But it needn't be complicated.
#4: Spending £450k on being bad parents
#5: Idiot Profile: Private-Jet Guy
#6: What the bloody hell is a ‘relationship with money’ anyway?
#7: What fund managers can teach us about what really matters
#8: “I want money so I don’t have to think about money”
#9: Idiot Profile: An oligarch with a gun
#10: If Kanye West were a financial adviser
#11: If all the world's a stage, then what does it matter where you stand?
#12: Financial Independence: An (Actual) Idiot’s Guide
#13: Let’s talk about money, baby
#14: New Year's Non-Idiotic Financial Resolutions
#15: New year, old message
#16: "Just tell me what to do"
#17: How to choose better investments
#18: You cannot count. This leads you to make idiotic financial decisions.
#19: What's your number?
#20: 7 magnificent money lessons that have nothing to do with money
#21: The merits of money are negative
#22: The psychoanalysis of money, or How to screw up your children’s financial worldview
#23: The ghosts of money... and how to bust them
#24: My favourite way to think about investing, part 1
#25: The ABC of money, part 1: the three self-deceptive poisons
#26: Consider the pineapple: the perfect symbol of idiot money
#27: The ABC of money, part 2: financial nobility, an overview
#28: My favourite way to think about investing, part 2
#29: The ABC of money, part 3: financial nobility, step 1
#30: My favourite way to think about investing, part 3
#31: The ABC of money, part 4: financial nobility, step 2
#32: The idiocy of ignoring impermanence (the ABC of money, part 5)
#33: The six financial stress responses: what's yours?
#34: My favourite way to think about investing, part 4: betting beyond the basics
#35: The ABC of money, part 6: financial nobility, step 3
#36: My favourite way to think about investing, part 5: cost-benefit investing
#37: The ABC of money, part 7: financial nobility, step 4
#38: The best diet advice and the best financial advice are the same
#39: The ABC of money, part 8: The Eightfold Path and interdependence
#40: The dance of becoming wiser with money
#41: Building a better money brain (the ABC of money, part 9: neuroplasticity)
#42: The dumbest damn thing I’ve ever read in personal finance (part 1)
#43: The dumbest damn thing I’ve ever read in personal finance (part 2)
#44: A story of lions and loss
#45: The ABC of money, part 10: what meditation isn’t
#46: The ABC of money, part 11: what meditation is
#47: Idiot Profiles: Lord and Lady Jewellery Addiction, Teenage Ozymandias, and me
#48: Living mindfully with money (the ABC of money, part 12)
#49: Give, give, give, me more, more, more
#50: Our most costly money problems are the ones we don't see
#51: Align what you care for with what you care about
#52: Do what only you can do
#53: Money for many means happily ever after… but after what?
#54: The ABC of money, part 13: financial enlightenment
#55: Identifying your hidden money addictions
#56: Treating your hidden money addictions
#57: Idiot Money Maths #1: How much does it cost to keep you happy?
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#15: New year, old message
28th December, 2020
Welcome to the Idiot Money newsletter. This week, a quick reminder that my offer to help you sort out your finances expires on Sunday.
If you're after something longer to read, there's a whole book's worth here (and if you want a 'nudge', a few wise souls have told me recently that they've found this distinction between philosophy-based and psychology-based solutions to our screwy relationships with money handy).

1. Want help sorting your finances?

Thank you to all those who've sent me answers to the questions I asked last week about what sorting your finances would look like to you. I'll round up the answers, together with the closest I'll ever get to a 'just tell me what to do' checklist next week.
If you'd like to ensue your own questions are covered, please hit reply and share your thoughts. If the list is too much, tell me the ONE thing you'd most like to know or sort out.
And if you’d like me to work with you to bring this about, let me know that too. I'll be choosing a few lucky folk on Sunday (3rd January).
Two more quick reminders:
    1.
    For both regulatory and being-sustainably-helpful reasons, we're talking about pointing the way and marking your homework, not doing it for you.
    2.
    I’m not selling anything, but this doesn’t come for free. If you’re interested in my help, you need to prove it, by telling me how much you’ll donate to EA Funds if I do. This isn’t an auction: the help goes to the best answers, not the highest numbers.
A reminder of the questions:
    What does having your finances sorted mean to you?
    What would it look and feel like?
    What actions would you be taking (or not taking)?
    What state would you be in when doing so?
    What specific questions would you like answering?
    What even matters about doing it?
    And if it’s that darn important, what excuses have you used to avoid doing it already? (Both the ones your internal spin-doctor spouts, and the real ones.)

2. New year, new Twitter

For those that don't like to read things more than a couple of lines at a time, I'm going to start using Twitter properly soon. Follow along here.

3. Money Maxim of the week: New Year edition

Our words are the building blocks of our world. The metaphors that power our language are the myths by which we live. Everybody’s lexicon has a special inner circle. Words, phrases, and theories that ears can’t fail to hear across a crowded room. These Maxims are designed to interrupt our unthinking as quickly and as effectively as possible. To stop, challenge, and where helpful, rewire our relationships with money.
This week: Rule #1: Chuck out before you tidy up​
So many wastes of energy, time, and money, are rooted in pointless searches for clever ways to tidy up what should’ve just been discarded. But the chance to appear ‘clever’ coupled with being wired to believe that answers are better bought than thought, can deceive us into equating clever with worthwhile.
Filter first, process second. The cleverest filing system, and fastest filing fingers in the world are an irrelevance if what you’re filing should’ve been shredded, or better yet, ignored in the first place. Before accumulating any new material or mental possessions, or organising existing ones, ask yourself: is it adding enough to my life to justify the space it’s taking up in my head or my home?
This goes for investments, too. For example, the implications of seeing all investments as gambles makes all fancy stock-picking analyses pointless. Most budgeting advice flounces around categorising crap into different buckets rather than working out how to stop spending money on stuff that doesn’t make life any better.
Clever storage solutions are better than living amid a maelstrom of pointless crap. But living without pointless crap is better yet. And living in a way that doesn’t produce pointless crap in the first place is best of all.
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Contents
1. Want help sorting your finances?
2. New year, new Twitter
3. Money Maxim of the week: New Year edition